ingenuity of our people, the might of our manufacturing base, the wisdom of our health care experts to confront covid-19, to protect our families and our communities, to slow the spread of the virus so we don't overwhelm our hospitals so that we can save lives. i've seen some of the projections. i hope to god's sake they're wrong. but we will lose many people unless we all take this seriously and unless we act. this is a moment for action and to show the world once again that there's no challenge too great for the american people. with that, madam president, i yield theebraska. mr. sasse: thank you, madam president. we are in the midst of two crises at once -- one health-related and one economic.

i tend to think that the prudent path forward on the health front is that even as we hope for the best, we should continue planning for the worst. if this nasty disease continues to ramp in roughly the same proportions it has in italy and spain, it would overwhelm our hospitals. so i think that the social distancing recommendations from the president and from the c.d.c. over the last four days are a prudent course of action. at the same time, we are also in the midst of a genuine economic crisis. lots of moms and dads are worried that they might be laid off and lots of small businesses are evaluating whether they're going to be able to make payroll and whether they're still going to be in business months down the line. they're scared, and d.c. needs to act a lot more urgently than we usually do. but -- and this is an important but -- just saying that we need to act urgently is not a substitute for actually having good ideas and actually

advancing good policies. there is a herd mentality around this building right now where a lot of normally smart people are literally saying things like, the most important thing is to be fast, even if the ideas that are being advocated for aren't really ready for prime time and can't really stand the -- withstand the scrutiny of debate. that's a really dumb idea. it is a ready, fire, aim approach. we do indeed need to work fast, but working fast is no substitute for working smart. again, i agree that this virus and the strategies necessary to contain it are producing some of the worst economic upheavals we've seen in a generation, and, further, we need to be preparing for these unexpected economic hardships to last for six months or even longer. but that fact is a reason to prepare. it is not a reason to panic. that fact is a reason to debate

hard and fast, but still to debate what good follows looks like. it is not a good reason to allow garbage policies to get by because someone says, no, no, we have to go faster. you can't ask questions about the policy. over the next 48 to 72 hours, this body will be making some crucial decisions about somewhere between one and four spending packages. i agree with the president that this is an unprecedented economic situation and the federal government at the health level obviously has a fundamentally crucial role to play in helping us get through this pandemic, which recognizes no borders or boundaries. and, thus, the federal government is going to have to spend real money, and as the third or fourth most conservative member of the senate by voting record, that's not language i use a lot, saying that we're going to have to spend real significant amounts of money. but that is clearly true in this moment. but saying that we have to spend real money is not the same as saying we should spend like idiots. and, unfortunately, d.c. so far

has been handling our responsibilities exactly as a lot of voters feared. right now, the proposal on the table which just came over from the house of representatives is for washington, d.c., to pull out its checkbook, which is really your checkbook, and just start firing. if you're an industry with a good lobbying team, you're told to line up at the door of the treasury department and get in line because bailout after bailout is probably in the offing. right now the plan around here is basically just to start shoveling money out of a helicopter and the most important debate is whether or not democrats or republicans get to shovel the money first. this is a bad idea. and washington should no better because 12 years ago something just like this was tried, and the consequences were really significant and lasting. they're still with us. i want to be clear -- i am not talking primarily about the total price tag. the price tag matters, but the thing that i'm trying to debate today is whether or not we're going to spend the american

people's money wisely or foolishly. and we're not having a lot of debate about that. we're hearing a lot of people saying the only important question is whether or not we can act fast enough. if you act fast but you spend money that's ineffective, you didn't effectively act fast. the congress is 12 years ago shoveled lots and lots of money into supposedly shovel-ready projects. you go to your governor and state legislate toured and business roundtables and you try to find people who know where the money went, i challenge you, that's not an easy thing to achieve. it also, more than just the spending and the debt, though, it also produced serious backlashes of national political moments on both the right and the left. the occupy wall street movement, some of which became the bernie sanders constituency and the tea

party are still with us in lots of ways that are not ultimately constructive for our body politic. we don't need a policy where washington, d.c., handpicks persistence and losers. there is a -- and picks pinners and losers. there's no one here that's competent to do that. we're in a period of extraordinary uncertainty, but no politician actually knows what happens next week, let alone six months from now, and humility would require us to admit that a bit more. the proposal currently on the table from speaker nancy pelosi is to blow through a massive amount of money on a policy core that isn't actually well-thought-out. when you ask hard questions about the bill that's come over from the house, there's nobody who actually defends it as really good well-thought-out policy. and that's why the first version of their bill passed so urgently last week at 120 pages last night required over 90 pages, right at 90 pages of technical

corrections. think about that. imagine your kid does homework and you say you wrote a 12-page essay and after you turn it in, you say actually nine of the 12 pages have to be thrown away and rewritten. that's what happened last night in the house of representatives. they tried to pass a 90-page fix to a 120-page bill that was supposedly really urgent last week. and oh, by the way, when you talk to the architects of that legislation in private when the cameras aren't rollth and you -- aren't rolling and you ask them hard questions, everybody starts pointing at everybody else. everybody admits that the built might actually accelerate layoffs from small businesses. think about that. the reason this first bill, if it ends up remaining independent rather than being bundled with the other ideas, this first bill, which is supposed to slow the pace of layoffs from small business, when you ask questions about it, the architects of the bill will admit to you in private that it might actually

accelerate the pace of layoffs from small business. nonetheless, despite admitting that today's version of the rube goldberg policy might have the opposite of its intended effect, the main answer you get it, we have to go very, very fast. this is wildly irresponsible what's happening here. once the first couple $100 billion of money is gone, that means there's less money left for the next round of stimulus and action and recovery and relief that's required, but besides money, it also means that there's less public trust left. there are going to be more rainy days ahead in the coming weeks and months, and there is not a lot of grassroots trust in the ethics or work of this institution. screaming we should go fastest is not a substitute for advocating for the actual policy. we have many politicians pretending that they know how to

plan rifle-shot bailouts industry by industry. this is a game of pretend. hurry up. look busy. spend more of the people's money. do it faster. that's not good stewardship of our responsibility much the senate is supposed to exist to calm down the passions that lead the house to move fast and write policy that's bad enough that a 120-page bill requires 90 pages of technical fixes. the senate's actual job in our bicameral constitutional structure is to ask hard questions of legislation, just like this. here's the good news. we don't have to mindlessly go down this pact again. we can do better than this. we can affirm the policy goal that we do need to help get resources to the people. but we can also make smarter, more responsible, less risky decisions right now that will provide a lifeline to people in need but will also leave room

for further action in the future, hopefully as we know more in the coming days and weeks. so, here's an alternate idea. instead of d.c. pretending it is omni competent, let's admit that it will require differentiates solutions. let's be sure we're accurately naming the problem here because i'm not talking now about the public health issues like speeding the development of a coronavirus vaccine or, where d.c. obviously needs to maintain a lead role, but i'm talking about the economic problem of the next 90 days. what is that? the question before us is how do we minimize the number of layoffs and how do we minimize the number of small business bankruptcies that are looming across our country? how do we make sure that more families can keep putting bread on the table rather than being abouting long-term dependences on the state? we should be laser focused on what the question is that we're

debating in this chamber this he week. that is the question. over the next 90 days, are there policy steps we can take to minimize the number of bankruptcies and layoffs that are going to affect american families so painfully? here are some needed truth. the feds don't know the precise answer because there isn't a single precise answer. the answers, plural, are going to vary across our continent-size nation of souls. if we pretend that we've a one-size-fits-all solution for this problem or if we pretend that being d. can be fair going industry by industry, we're going to screw up badly. the lobbyists are going to dominate the day, not the public interests. i am open to spending in this moment, but that isn't an excuse store failing to spend well. we need to spend the people's money well. we need to steward our callings

with humility. and we need to spend much better than this current house bill does. so let's take the mo enthat's being proposed -- so let's take the money that's being proposed and let's direct more than after of -- more than half of all of it to our stobs. i trust pete ricketts, my governor, a heck of a lot more than i trust nancy pelosi. pete and i have more aligned political philosophies. but that's not really the point. the real reason i trust him more is the same reason i think senator feinstein would trust gavin new some more. that is, moo my governor is on the ground with his 1.9 million people. he is not off in being d. looking across a 325 million nation as if our problems with undifferentiated and as if the solutions can be one-size-fits-all. that is going to waste a

saturday majority of the people's resorrieses. we have 50 ditch states with 50 different sets of circumstances and needs. californians have needs that nebraskans don't in this moment, and vice versa. we can get money to the governors quickly, and they can distribute it in ways that will best help their people. but a the house's one-size-fits-all approach, this nationalized leave policy in this first bundled bill, is going to cause a lot of people to fall through the cracks, and why is it that different industries and different sized firms are treated so radically differently? it is because who was last in the speaker's office as they cobbled together the first 120 pages that needed 90 pages of corrections. the rube goldberg bill is going to create a handful of politically connected winners but it will create a whole lot more economic losers. part of these relief packages will need to come from d.c. in targeted ways. i admit that. part of this is going to need to come from d.c.

but the idea that all of it can or that all of it should is arrogant. it is wrong, and it will be ineffective. our governors know their states and their people. our governors know how to build public-private partnerships. congress doesn't. our governors know so much better than we do what their work force needs were before the coronavirus struck and what their workforce needs are going to be in late q-3 or q-4 when hopefully the economy is humming again. simply put, our governors know how to target this munch more efficiently than we do so that so much more of that money will make its way to main street. lots of governors have led well in the past three weeks. i mentioned my governor pete ricketts and how haste strong leadership has been laying the groundwork to help shield our state from some of the worst ravages of this virus. likewise, i would recognize governor dewine in ohio as showing strong leadership on what it looks like to put facts front and center. what we need right now at the

state, at the local, and at the federal levels is not just any action. we need responsible, effective, defensible action. this is not a time for washington to go on an anything-goes spending spree. it's not an opportunity for washington's connected insiders to exploit personal relationships, to put their pet projects first on things that they wouldn't have been able to get past if it weren't a time of crisis. we don't have to go down that path. instead, we can more efficiently and more wisely spend the people's resources. we can give our states and our governors the lead in making sure that the majority of the money, the majority of the resources get where they are most needed. we can help families and businesses keep afloat during this storm by admitting that 50 laboratories of democracy are going to be more effective than a rifle-shot approach from washington. we can create room for further action, but we can also acknowledge that the particular needs are going to evolve in the

coming weeks. we need less instant certainty and more humility in this building. we should not pretend that the only government is the federal government. congress should eat more humble pie. there is a reason why even the least popular governor in america is more popular than almost everyone who works in this chamber. there's a reason for that, and the main reason is that while members of congress spend lots of our time playing pundit, sadly, governors actually lead. they manage budgets, they make decisions, they lead departments, they engage their community in the actual private sector, not just hire lobbyists who work for the private sector. they are physically on the ground with the people that they serve. that means they know a thing or two about the businesses in their community. it means they know a thing or two about the industries that are rising and falling in their cities and in their rural areas. they have a kind of decentralized knowledge about this crisis and what was needed at this moment that people in

washington, d.c. lack. cable news is focused on wall street, but here's the deal. main street is going to be the place where lots of the pain is ultimately shouldered from this crisis. and when wall street needs something, wall street hires k street, and congress is told by k street what they want, and that's usually what ends up in the bill. when main street needs something, they drive to lincoln, they drive to indianapolis, and nashville and columbus and albany and sacramento, and the granular understanding of their particular problem is almost always more nuanced than is understood here. that's why as long as congress is debating this spending this week, i'm going to be fighting to make sure that we give more than half of all this money to our governors to distribute. they know how to spend this money better than this d.c.-centric house of representatives bill. that's the way we can actually get this done and help our people grit through this time of unprecedented economic

>> it is free, easy to use, all there at c-span.org/campaign ll 2020. >> it is easy to follow the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak at c-span.org/coronavirus. maps andractive charts, watch briefings and hearings with public health specialists anytime unfiltered at c-span.org/coronavirus. governmentederal

continues to work on the coronavirus economic aid package, governors from across the country are providing updates on how their states are responding. here is what some of them had to say starting with new york governor andrew cuomo. >> good morning, happy st. patrick's day. everybody knows james our great theth commissioner, secretary to the governor and the budget director. .et me go through an update as you know the situation changes daily now. which is